Dec 19 (AP) - The defense ministers of Japan, Britain and Italy signed an agreement on Thursday to establish a joint organization to develop a new advanced jet fighter, as the countries push to strengthen their cooperation in the face of growing threats from China, Russia and North Korea.
The three countries had agreed last year to merge earlier individual plans — for Japan’s Mitsubishi F-X to succeed the retiring F-2s developed with the United States and Britain’s Tempest – to produce the new combat aircraft for deployment in 2035.
Japan, which is rapidly building up its military, hopes to have a greater capability to counter China’s rising assertiveness while welcoming Britain’s bigger presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
“We are living in a difficult period and it requires cooperation between nations, to exchange knowledge, technology, to make industrial agreements,” explained Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto noting that these three great nations “feel threatened by state actors that are becoming more aggressive.”
Japanese Defense Minister Minoru Kihara said at a joint news conference with his British and Italian counterparts, Grant Shapps and Guido Crosetto, that co-developing a high-performance fighter aircraft is “indispensable to securing air superiority and enabling effective deterrence” at a time that Japan faces an increasingly severe security environment.
